Is there a Simple Explanation for the Kraemer Effect?

People tend to judge that an agent brought about the ends more intentionally than the means that brought about those ends. This difference in intentionality judgments is called the Kraemer Effect. We aimed to determine whether there was a simple explanation for the Kraemer Effect. Recent work found that people judge an action to be intentional to the extent that the agent’s mental state caused the action (Quillien and German, 2021). In line with this work, we hypothesized that people show the Kraemer Effect because they think the agent’s desire was more causal in bringing about the ends than the means. In two experiments, we tested this hypothesis. While we replicated the Kraemer Effect in both experiments, we found no evidence in support of this explanation for the Kraemer Effect.